By JOHN LEICESTER and KANIS LEUNG, Associated Press

OUISTREHAM, France (AP) — The captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give them a first morsel of one of World War II’s most closely guarded secrets: Prepare yourselves, he said, for “an extremely important task.”

“Speculations abound,” one of the officers wrote in his diary that day — June 2, 1944. “Some say a second front, some say we are to escort the Soviets, or doing something else around Iceland. No one is allowed ashore.”

The secret was D-Day — the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-occupied France with the world’s largest-ever sea, land and air armada. It punctured Adolf Hitler’s fearsome “Atlantic Wall” defenses and sped the dictator’s downfall 11 months later.

The diary writer was Lam Ping-yu — a Chinese officer who crossed the world with two dozen comrades-in-arms from China to train and serve with Allied forces in Europe.

An exhibit on display shows members of a Chinese contingent of naval officers who travelled to Europe in World War II to train with British forces, including Lam Ping-yu, who kept a diary and is shown by a blue arrow, in Ouistreham, France, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/John Leicester)

For 32-year-old Lam, watching the landings in Normandy, France, unfold from aboard the battleship HMS Ramillies proved to be momentous.

His meticulously detailed but long-forgotten diary was rescued by urban explorers from a Hong Kong tenement block which was about to be demolished. It is bringing his story back to life and shedding light on the participation of Chinese officers in the multinational invasion.

As survivors of the Battle of Normandy disappear, Lam’s compelling firsthand account adds another vivid voice to the huge library of recollections that the World War II generation is leaving behind, ensuring that its sacrifices for freedom and the international cooperation that defeated Nazism aren’t forgotten.

“Saw the army’s landing craft, as numerous as ants, scattered and wriggling all over the sea, moving southward,” Lam wrote on the evening of June 5, as the invasion fleet steamed across the English Channel.

“Everyone at action stations. We should be able to reach our designated location around 4-5 a.m. tomorrow and initiate bombardment of the French coast,” he wrote.

Breakthroughs

Sleuthing by history enthusiasts Angus Hui and John Mak in Hong Kong pieced together the story of how Lam found himself aboard HMS Ramillies and proved vital in verifying the authenticity of his 80-page diary, written in 13,000 wispy, delicate Chinese characters.

Hui and Mak have curated and are touring an exhibition about Lam, his diary and the other Chinese officers — now on display in the Normandy town of Ouistreham.

One breakthrough was their discovery, confirmed in Hong Kong land records, that the abandoned 9th-floor flat where the diary was found had belonged to one of Lam’s brothers.

Another was Hui’s unearthing in British archives of a 1944 ship’s log from HMS Ramillies. A May 29 entry recorded that two Chinese officers had come aboard. Misspelling Lam’s surname, it reads: “Junior Lieut Le Ping Yu Chinese Navy joined ship.”

A suitcase recovered from an abandoned Hong Kong apartment, where a World War II diary written by Chinese naval officer Lam Ping-yu was also found, is exhibited in Ouistreham, France, Oct. 4, 2025 . (AP Photo/John Leicester)

Lost, found and lost again

Lam’s leather-bound black notebook has had a dramatic life, too.

Lost and then found, it has now gone missing again. Hui and Mak say it appears to have been squirreled away somewhere — possibly taken to the U.S. or the U.K. by people who emigrated from Hong Kong — after the explorers riffled through the apartment, salvaging the diary, other papers, a suitcase, and other curios, before the building was demolished.

But Hui, who lived close by, got to photograph the diary’s pages before it disappeared, preserving Lam’s account.

“I knew, ‘Okay, this is a fascinating story that we need to know more about,’” he says.

“Such a remarkable piece of history … could have remained buried forever,” Mak says.

They shared Lam’s account with his daughter, Sau Ying Lam, who lives in Pittsburgh. She previously knew very little about her father’s wartime experiences. He died in 2000.

“I was flabbergasted,” she says. “It’s a gift of me learning who he was as a young person and understanding him better now, because I didn’t have that opportunity when he was still alive.”

This handout photo provided by Huang Shansong, son of Huang Tingxin, one of the 24 officers sent to Britain, Chinese naval officers pose for a photo in front of a pyramid on Sept. 8, 1943, in Egypt during their journey to Britain for training. (Huang Shansong via AP)

A lucky escape

Lam was part of a group of more than 20 Chinese naval officers sent during World War II for training in the U.K. by Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang led a Nationalist government in China from 1928 to 1949, fighting invasion by Japan and then Mao Zedong’s communists, before fleeing to Taiwan with the remnants of his forces when Mao’s insurgents took power.

On their long journey from China, the officers passed through Egypt — a photo shows them posing in front of the pyramids in their white uniforms — before joining up with British forces.

In his diary, Lam wrote of a narrow brush with death on D-Day aboard HMS Ramillies, as the battleship’s mighty guns were pounding German fortifications with massive 880-kilogram (1,938-pound) shells before Allied troops hit the five invasion beaches.

“Three torpedoes were fired at us,” Lam wrote. “We managed to dodge them.”

FILE – This photograph is believed to show E Company, 16th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, participating in the first wave of assaults during D-Day in Normandy, France, June 6, 1944. (Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert M. Sargent, U.S. Coast Guard via AP, File)

His daughter marvels at the lucky escape.

“If that torpedo had hit the ship, I wouldn’t be alive,” she says.

Through ships’ logs, Hui and Mak say they’ve confirmed that at least 14 Chinese officers participated in Operation Neptune — the 7,000-vessel naval component of the invasion which was code-named Operation Overlord — and other Allied naval operations as the Battle of Normandy raged on after D-Day.

Operation Dragoon

Some of the officers, including Lam, also saw action in the Allied invasion of southern France that followed, in August 1944.

“Action stations at 4 a.m., traces of the moon still visible, although the horizon is unusually dark,” Lam wrote on Aug. 15. “Bombardment of the French coast started at 6, Ramillies didn’t open fire until 7.

“The Germans put up such a feeble resistance, one can call it nonexistent.”

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France awarded its highest honor, the Légion d’honneur, to the Chinese contingent’s last survivor in 2006. Huang Tingxin, then 88, dedicated the award to all those who traveled with him from China to Europe, saying “it was a great honor to join the anti-Nazi war,” China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported at the time.

Lam’s daughter says their story remains inspirational.

“It talks about unity, talks about hard work, about doing good,” she says. “World War II, I think it shows us that we can work together for common good.”

Leung reported from Hong Kong.

By ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia battered Ukraine’s energy facilities with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in its latest heavy bombardment of the country’s power grid, authorities said Thursday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to ask President Donald Trump at a White House meeting for more American-made air defenses and long-range missiles.

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Eight Ukrainian regions experienced blackouts after the barrage, Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, said. DTEK, the country’s largest private energy company, reported outages in the capital, Kyiv, and said it had to stop its natural gas extraction in the central Poltava region due to the strikes. Natural gas infrastructure was damaged for the sixth time this month, Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company, said.

Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 300 drones and 37 missiles at Ukraine overnight. He accused Russia of using cluster munitions and conducting repeated strikes on the same target to hit emergency crews and engineers working to repair the grid.

“This fall, the Russians are using every single day to strike our energy infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian power grid been one of Russia’s main targets since its invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago. Attacks increase as the bitterly cold months approach in a Russian strategy that Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing winter.” Russia says it aims only at targets of military value.

Ukraine has hit back by targeting oil refineries and related infrastructure that are crucial for Russia’s economy and war effort. Ukraine’s general staff said Thursday its forces struck Saratov oil refinery, in the Russian region of the same name, for the second time in two months. The facility is located some 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Moscow made no immediate comment on the claim.

Ukraine seeks air defenses and attack missiles

Ukrainian forces have resisted Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army, limiting it to a grinding war of attrition along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking through eastern and southern regions.

But Ukraine, which is almost the size of Texas, is hard to defend from the air in its entirety, and Kyiv officials are seeking more Western help to fend against aerial attacks and strike back at Russia.

Zelenskyy was expected to arrive in the United States on Thursday, ahead of his Oval Office meeting with Trump on Friday.

Ukraine is seeking cruise missiles, air defense systems and joint drone production agreements from the United States, Kyiv officials say. Zelenskyy also wants tougher international economic sanctions on Moscow.

The visit comes amid signs that Trump is leaning toward stepping up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to break the deadlock in U.S.-led peace efforts.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday in Brussels that if Russia won’t budge from its objections and refuses to negotiate a peace deal, Washington “will take the steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression.”

Also, Trump said Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally assured him that his country would stop buying Russian oil. That would deny Moscow income it needs to keep fighting in Ukraine.

Washington has hesitated over providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, such as Tomahawks, out of concern that such a step could escalate the war and deepen tensions between the United States and Russia.

But Trump has been frustrated by his inability to force an end to the war in Ukraine and has expressed impatience with Putin, whom he increasingly describes as the primary obstacle to a resolution.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment published late Wednesday that sending Tomahawks to Ukraine would not escalate the war and would only “mirror Russia’s own use of … long-range cruise missiles against Ukraine.”

Ukraine engages with American defense companies

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Economy Ministry said Thursday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. company Bell Textron Inc. to cooperate in aviation technology.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based aerospace and defense company will open an office in Ukraine and establish a center for assembly and testing, while exchanging know-how and training Ukrainians in the United States, according to a ministry statement.

Ukraine, unsure what it can expect from Western allies, is keen to develop its own arms industry.

On Wednesday, a Ukrainian government delegation met during a U.S. visit with prominent American weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

By GIADA ZAMPANO, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Thursday denounced the use of hunger as a weapon of war as he urged world leaders to act responsibly and focus on the multitudes across the globe who face hunger, wars and misery.

During an address on World Food Day at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Leo urged the international community to not look the other way, at a time of dwindling foreign aid budgets.

The pope named the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, along with Haiti, Afghanistan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Yemen and South Sudan. He cited U.N. data showing that around 673 million people do not eat enough each day.

“We can no longer delude ourselves by thinking that the consequences of our failures impact only those who are hidden out of sight,” he said. “The hungry faces of so many who still suffer challenge us and invite us to reexamine our lifestyles, our priorities and our overall way of living in today’s world.”

“We must make their suffering our own,” he concluded in English, after delivering most of his speech in Spanish to world leaders, ministers and ambassadors gathered at FAO’s Rome headquarters for an event commemorating the U.N. agency’s 80th anniversary.

Leo condemned the use of hunger as a weapon of war, but didn’t name any specific conflict or region. Humanitarian groups have long denounced the practice, in which food or aid is restricted or diverted during a conflict, leaving innocent civilians to go hungry. Most recently, even some Jewish groups have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, a claim Israel strongly denies.

“In a time when science has lengthened life expectancy, allowing millions of human beings to live, and die, struck by hunger is a collective failure, an ethical derailment, a historic offense,” he said.

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Leo’s warning comes as U.N. food aid agencies face severe funding cuts from their top donors that risk hurting their operations in key countries and forcing millions of people into emergency levels of hunger.

The World Food Program, traditionally the U.N.’s most-funded agency, said in a new report on Wednesday that its funding this year “has never been more challenged” — largely due to slashed outlays from the U.S. under the Trump administration and other leading Western donors.

It warned that 13.7 million of its food aid recipients could be forced into emergency levels of hunger as funding is cut. The countries facing “major disruptions” are Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — Two bright green comets are streaming through the skies and are visible to skygazers in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Both hail from the outer edges of our solar system — possibly what’s known as the Oort Cloud, well beyond Pluto. Comet Lemmon will have its closest brush with Earth on or around Tuesday. The other cosmic snowball, Comet SWAN, should have its flyby with Earth on Monday, but it’s headed away from the sun and will likely grow dimmer as the days pass.

Spotting two comets simultaneously without special equipment is “rare, but not unprecedented,” said Carson Fuls, director of the University of Arizona-based sky survey that spotted Comet Lemmon.

To see the pair, go outside just after sunset and look to the northern sky for Comet Lemmon close to the horizon. Comet SWAN will also be near the horizon, but to the southwest.

The double comets could be visible with binoculars through the end of the month, but experts aren’t yet sure how bright they’ll remain, said astronomer Valerie Rapson of the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Comets are frozen leftovers from the solar system’s formation billions of years ago. They heat up as they swing toward the sun, releasing their characteristic streaming tails.

Comet Lemmon, also designated C/2025 A6, was discovered in January by a telescope scouring the night sky for near-Earth asteroids. Comet SWAN, also known as C/2025 R2, was spotted in September by an amateur astronomer using photos from a spacecraft operated by NASA and the European Space Agency.

The comets are green because of gases streaming off their surfaces. From Earth, they’ll look like gray, fuzzy patches.

Earlier this year, a green comet broke up as it swung by the sun, dashing hopes of a naked-eye spectacle. A bright comet called Tsuchinshan-Atlas zoomed by Earth in 2024, and other notable flybys included Neowise in 2020 and Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the 1990s.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.